I'd like to know if there is a pagan influence on the Catholic
faith, in particular, if there is a 'mother/child' idol connection?

I hope I'm making sense!

I've been told by someone that the Catholic Church took, what
may appear to be a pagan ritual, the 'mother/child', Mary/Jesus relationship
and used that to profit from and create a 'sensationalistic portrayal'
of this particular aspect of the Catholic faith; the mother/child relationship.

I guess what I want to know is, if there is a pagan ritual that
was used by the Catholic Church to heighten the Mary/Jesus relationship
to the point of 'idolizing' it?

I hope that helps.

Please let me know!

Also, if there is something, let me know of any articles or books
I can obtain to learn more about this.

Many thanks!

Paul.

The portions in dark blue were added later, in August,
2000, when this letter was formatted and posted. In this section, we overview
several books from the Prometheus catalogue (simply because Prometheus
publishes many books along these lines and reviewing their catalogue is
relatively easy in lieu of my owning more than a few books on this subject.
The added portion also reiterates the point that almost all of Christianity
is of Pagan origins, and that the Protestant claim that only Roman Catholicism
contains these elements is false. One review even suggests that Roman Catholicism
has influenced modern Paganism, not vice versa.

Almost the entire Christ myth is of pagan (non-Jewish) origin, blending
the dying and resurrecting god of Mythraism and other Roman myths with
the Gnostic picture of a holy being descending to an evil world to enlighten
the elect.

When Christianity became the official religion of the dying Roman Empire,
even more pagan elements were brought in, because the people just wouldn't
give up their old ways.

Any of several books detailing the origins
of Christianity should help you in your studies, the Pagan (non-Jewish)
origins of Christianity and particularly Roman Catholicism is firmly established.
Thus, most studies will come to pretty much the same conclusion.

I highly recommend the new book Deconstructing
Jesus by Robert M. Price (published in 2000). In describing and defending
his model of "Jesus agnosticism," Price overviews almost the
entire Jesus Seminar work and peeks at many other peripheral models. Price's
Bibliography and references should point you toward seeing the Pagan origins
of Christianity itself. With this, you might end up seeing Protestantism
as a religion that has stripped various elements from Roman Catholicism.
In this sense, Roman Catholicism would differ from Protestantism only in
the fact that it retains more Pagan elements than does Protestantism. I
have read this book. It had such a powerful effect on me that within a
few chapters, Price's "Jesus agnosticism" model had overthrown
my long-held views derived from Maccoby's works.

The compilation Jesus in History and Myth
edited by R. Joseph Hoffmann and Gerald A Larue contains works from many
Jesus Seminar participants. This Jesus Seminar is important in that you
can investigate the various elements of the accepted Gospel tale that these
scholars reject as mythical, and often find these elements to be of Pagan
(non-Jewish) origin. I have not read this book, but intend to read it eventually.

Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
by William R. Harwood shows what happened when biblical scholars began
applying critical methods of documentary analysis to the Judaeo-Christian
Bible. I have not read this book, but it is available on Prometheus.

The Christ by John E. Remsberg is a
classic overview of the Gospel stories with much information on its Pagan
origins. I have read the print edition of this book and found it to be
quite the page-turner. A somewhat corrupt e-text copy lives used to live
at Internet Infidels, but alas, is no more. It is available as a reprint
on Prometheus. We have our own edition of it posted if you are interested in reading it.

The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews alleges
that there is no historical Christ and that the entire Christ myth is derived
from both Pagan and Jewish mythology. I have read this book and found it
quite compelling in my pursuit of Price's "Jesus agnosticism"
model. Some of Drews's information is unique, particularly his notion of
the Jewish origins of the dying and resurrecting god, but he, like the
others, paints quite a provocative picture of the Christ we all know and
love.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth
by Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John Allegro suggests that Christianity evolved
out of the Messianic theology of the Essenes, the Jewish sect that wrote
the Dead Sea Scrolls. This information is reiterated in some of Hyam Maccoby's
works as well. Maccoby suggests that only certain elements of the Christ
myth came from the Essenes, and this viewpoint is shared, in part, by Robert
M. Price. Most of Allegro's work, though, documents the infighting among
Dead Sea Scrolls scholars and the attempts to suppress the group's findings;
thus, this book reads very much like a spy novel. I have read this book.

The Great Deception by Gerd Lüdemann
documents the gap between the "Jesus of history" and the "Christ
of faith." Very scholarly and translated from German, this book is
a tough read, and I read parts of it but not the whole thing. Lüdemann
recently renounced his membership in the Church and is now openly flaunting
his atheism.

The Historical Evidence for Jesus by
G. A. Wells, like all of Wells's Jesus books (which I have read), concludes
that there is absolutely no compelling reason to think that a historical
Jesus existed. Wells has "squarely faced the question of whether a
man named Jesus lived, preached, healed, and died in Palestine during the
early years of the first century of the Christian era -- or indeed, at
any time. Building on the biblical studies of Christian theologians, Dr.
Wells soberly demonstrates that we have no reliable eyewitnesses to the
events depicted in the New Testament." (From the Prometheus review
of this book.) If Robert M. Price is an "Jesus agnostic,"
G. A. Wells and Arthur Drews might toyingly be thought of as "Jesus
atheists"!

The Jesus Idea by Arnold M. Rothstein,
like Deconstructing Jesus, by Robert M. Price, advocates what Price
calls "Jesus agnosticism." Rothstein examines Jesus as an idea
of salvation, not as a historical figure. This idea was gradually modified
over time. The author shows that "we know next to nothing about the
actual existence of Jesus, all efforts to recover the history of this individual
ending in failure." (From the Prometheus review.)

The Mystery of the Kingdom of God by
Albert Schweitzer is a classic study on the origins of the Passion of Christ
which I have yet to read.

The Old Faith & The New: Westminster
College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion by David Friedrich
Strauss revolutionized the study of Christian origins. He advocates inductive
reasoning (the New Faith) as our only hope of finding solutions to human
problems. I have not read this book

The Origins of Christianity: A Critical
Introduction edited by R. Joseph Hoffmann seeks to show that during
the third and fourth centuries. the historical content of the Gospel stories
took a back seat to the lessons of morality the priests sought to impart
to the church. I have not read this book.

In an inversion of what I have been discussing
here, The Supernatural, The Occult, and The Bible by Gerald A. Larue
describes the Roman Catholic origins of modern Paganism and occult practices. I
have not read this book, but think it might be right up your alley in pursuing
your specific question regarding Pagan elements within Roman Catholicism.

You may want to check out "The
Story of Religious Controversy" by Joseph McCabe, a former Roman
Catholic Priest who became a civil rights leader and aan outspoken and
very prolific critic of the Church. I have not read all of this book, but
have read several chapters.

There are some books out from a Protestant perspective, most notably
"The Two
Babylons" by the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop, which is still being
reprinted and distributed in some of the more evangelical and fundamentalistic
Bible stores in America. I found what appears to be a complete e-text copy
at:http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htmThis book comes from the perspective that what Evangelicals call biblical
Christianity (Reformed or Calvinistic Protestantism) is the One True Faith.
Thus, it paints biblical Christianity is being of non-Pagan origins, and
compares it with the additional Pagan elements found within Roman
Catholicism. It does, however, detail the pagan (non-Christian) origins
of many of the elements that are unique to Catholicism. I cannot vouch
for the author's scholarship or integrity, but this might be a good start
at investigating this question in a more detailed way.